Death & the City Book Two (6 page)

"Oh, I see. Scheduled breakdown recovery," I reply. "Want me to give it a proper breakdown?"

"We think Special Unit have got their sights set on the Merc. About time they upgraded from that ex-
Dyno-Rod
Transit. Because the drivers are unarmed, we're just sending in the wheel-clampers to impound it. You may or may not have noticed the gloriously fresh double yellow lines painted all around this block. The woman with the home dog-grooming business next door to Terry's totally lost her cool over that this morning. Screaming that there's nowhere for her customers to park."

"What did you say?" I chuckle.

"They're bloody dog owners, fucking let them walk, they're used to it - or should be," head office reply mildly. "Anyway, they'll all be gone when the Council get enough complaints letters and snotty emails. It'll be a good excuse to make it a parking meter zone instead."

"Bastards," I chuckle. "Any idea what Pizza Boy is armed with?"

"Biohazard," they report. "Bit of a Salmonella Streptococcus Special, with deep-fried Botulism Sticks, a side order of Crispy Garlic Fly Agaric, Angel Dusted Doughnuts, and a large Ketamine Cola, so to speak. But most food delivery boys carry CS gas now. Except for Scamways supermarket delivery drivers. They carry Tasers. You'd love to know how many people wouldn't mind getting their hands on a nice hijacked refrigerated supermarket truck."

"I can imagine," I muse. "Okay. I'll look out for over-zealous personal security items on Pizza Boy, defending himself with extreme prejudice. I hope he's brought something fun. By the sound of dinner, Terry might have to crack open a Rennie. He might even belch. Don't you remember the fibreglass chop suey? He just coughed it up like a hairball and got minor haemorrhoids."

"His body's got to give out at some point. We're hoping it's soon, before his kids get too old to miss him."

"It's probably one of his kids delivering the pizza," I mutter. "Okay, I'm guessing
YOU
want the Mercedes getaway van. How do you want Pizza Boy?"

"If he pulls out an offensive weapon, in a body bag," they respond. "If he pulls out anything from a bicycle chain down, detain him for uniform to take away. If all he does is hand over pizza, let him go. We'll follow him from his pick-up point, because as of now, the Merc's going nowhere except to be tucked up nice and warm in Special Unit's depot. While the drivers are on their way down the nick to answer some questions about impersonating roadside service personnel."

"What about Terry's Meals on Wheels?" I ask. "Are you willing to chance it?"

"He's definitely eaten worse," they tell me. "We looked at this kid's shopping list on the internet. Would give a dog a bit of a hangover. But knowing Dyer, he'll probably get away with a few days off sick and some Dioralyte."

I leave the mobile on Speakerphone as I stick it in the dash. Pizza Boy approaches the front door, carefully balancing Death By Dinner, and then rings the doorbell on Terry's period mews house. I'm watching Pizza Boy's hands closely. He's still got his motorcycle gloves on, but I'm guessing it's as much not to absorb transient toxins as to leave fingerprints. I'm interested in case they go for any of his pockets, and what else might emerge.

"Sorry, did you want camera view?" I ask head office, drumming my fingers on the Beretta barrel, as it rests on my knee under the steering wheel.

"No, we've got CCTV on the lamp-post right outside his door," they reassure me.

Terry's frame fills the doorway, blocking any internal view of his house. His wallet emerges from his pocket, in a hand resembling a rack of pork ribs, and he towers over the boy's ropey figure while he counts notes laboriously, swaying slightly in a very familiar way. Pissed already, I hear myself and Pizza Boy think simultaneously.

Terry stops counting and sways a bit more. I see the boy's helmet angle quizzically, as if saying:
Are you all right?

The wallet falls. Terry's swaying is abruptly ended by the doorframe, as his left side gives way. He doesn't so much slump as wedge upright, his eyes looking alarmed, mouth opening and shutting like a landed fish.

Pizza Boy takes a faltering step back, and looks around urgently, as Terry starts to keel. I'm already halfway out of the car, remembering to grab my phone on the way out.

"No contact, no contact," head office order. "Hit not carried out."

"I can see that," I say, crossing the road. Pizza Boy turns and looks at me, and I point to the food parcel he's still holding, with the muzzle of the Beretta. "Put that down, and call an ambulance."

"I can't just leave this lying around," the lad falters, skin pallor lightening visibly under his pushed-up visor.

"I don't care if it crawls away into the bushes, it's not your problem any more. He is." I wave the gun in Terry's direction. "Get an ambulance on the phone. You're going to tell them what I tell you to say."

The Pizza Boy drops his delivery and pulls out a Blueberry, dialling Emergency Services. I look at Terry Dyer, now on his knees on the step, gripping the doorframe with his right hand so that the meaty knuckles are stark white. Gibberish comes out of his mouth as he sees the gun in my hand.

I'm just glad he hasn't looked up at my face. Not because I'm aware that by the look of things, he's having trouble with his neck muscles generally.

"Is he having a heart attack?" Pizza Boy asks. "Oh yeah, er, ambulance please."

"Either that, or a stroke," I correct him. "Too many additives in his diet."

A sudden piercing siren makes us both jump, and I realise it's my car telling me the driver's door is open.

"Can you shut that off?" I ask head office on my mobile, and the car door slams with a beep, notifying the end of the alarm. "Cheers." I catch Pizza Boy's eye as he's giving the address and his phone number. "Just talking to my poltergeist."

"Yeah, Yuri had to install automatic and remote lockdown on your car since the last upgrade," head office confirm. "We've got an ambulance at the petrol station at Scamways, can get it to you in three."

"Not Adam Grayson," I say.

"He can get rid of that pizza box as biohazard. Make sure no-one else touches it."

"Yeah, it's my Dad," I hear Pizza Boy saying. "Terrence Wilberforce Dyer. He's forty-four."

Points to me, I think.

He disconnects and looks at me.

"Three minutes," he says, and I nod. He looks down at my gun again suspiciously. "Who are you working for?"

"Him," I say truthfully, pointing at Terry. "I'm one of his door staff."

"Oh," he says, and his attitude changes slightly. "He said he gets someone to watch the house occasionally. Usually when he's away."

"One of the small benefits of running your own security firm," I shrug. "What's your name?"

"Ian Dyer."

"Everything okay?" head office ask me.

"Yeah, it's all good," I report. "Got his next of kin here. Can go in the ambulance with him."

"Who's that you're talking to?" Ian asks.

"The police," I tell him. A wink of light catches my eye, and I look up at the rooftops opposite. "They've been keeping an eye on your Dad too."

Ian's gaze wanders uncomfortably to the pizza parcel.

"I'll have to call work and tell them where I am," he says miserably.

"Yeah, you can sort that out when Terry's fixed up," I tell him, and a flashing blue light announces the arrival of the ambulance. The big lemon-yellow van pulls up, and Adam Grayson gets out and approaches, while two other paramedics open the rear doors and pull the stretcher down. "Hey, there. Got a cardiac or stroke victim for you."

"Okay." He surveys the scenario quickly. "All right, fella, you're off to hospital. What's that?"

He points with the pen in his purple latex-gloved hand, at the dark blue pizza bag on the ground.

"Biohazard. Yellow bag job."

"That bad, huh?" He looks questioningly at Ian the Pizza Boy. "You get this reaction to your food often?"

"First time ever," Ian mutters. Adam looks at me. His blonde cropped punk hairstyle hasn't changed in ten years since I last saw him. He adjusts the wireless hands-free earpiece in his ear, and I recognise the tinny sound of head office talking to him on another line.

"No contact," head office remind me on my phone, in unison. "The weapon's on the ground, it's a non-hit."

"Put that away," Adam says quietly, touching the back of my hand which has the gun in it, as the other paramedics approach. I shove it into my overalls pocket. He turns to Ian. "Right, we're going to assess your Dad in the ambulance on the way to hospital, we need to treat him
ASAP
.
You can give us the details on the way." He unzips his green equipment satchel to take out a yellow biohazard disposal bag, while the other two ready the stretcher, lengthening the safety straps. "Chuck your delivery box in here. Nobody's going to want that now."

Ian complies, and Adam seals it.

"Hazard secure," Adam and I both report at once.

"Clear the scene," they tell me, as Terry is loaded onto the trolley, Ian helping by lifting his feet. "Your part is done. We'll get the kid counselled in A&E and find out what's going on with him."

"Cool, I need to get to work," I say. I nod at Adam in passing and head for my car, which unlocks as I approach it, taking the key fob out of my pocket. "Give me a shout if there's anything else."

"We'll look after Dyer," they assure me. "Since last week he's only worth about the cost of one of his small dinners anyway. Looks like this was personal, family business. It's all politics and pet protesters in fashion this week, and supermodels who wear fur."

"Sounds like an interesting contract," I remark politely, getting back into the car and returning the Beretta to the glove-box. "What is it, hit-men for hire to go and bag a new endangered species of coat?"

"Don't joke about it," they chuckle. "You never know what's coming up next."

Chapter 23:
Karmachanic

I greet my workmates, and pay my routine toilet visit when I arrive at work. All on autopilot as my mind's not on it, thinking about Terry Dyer's lucky escape so far. Not that he wasn't killed by a hit-man, but that he was lucky enough to have both his hit-man and his hit-man's executioner on site to assist him, when he almost spontaneously died on his own doorstep. My mind is replaying it over and over, as I stand at the Dyson Blade hand dryer.

Pascaline strolls in and grunts a monosyllabic greeting, slamming the cubicle door shut behind her. Solange follows like a chirpy balloon, and shouts
'Bonjour!'
under the cubicle door.

Pascaline moans a laconic response, and Solange makes a sympathetic noise.

"Comme ça va?"
she asks, patting on the door. I say nothing, but re-apply some eyeliner and lipstick, pretending it means nothing to me. But I get the general gist of the response as Pascaline pours it out miserably
en Français.

Pascaline has met a girl, it seems, who is being harassed by an ex-partner and it is complicated, as usual. Apparently the ex is threatening her with
vaudaux,
and has kept samples of her blood and hair. Pascaline is fed up with girls who have sob stories about the sado-masochistic auto-erotic fantasy shit that their last girlfriends were into. But the complicated part is, the girl is afraid she might also be pregnant from one of her ex's 'sex games' and she's afraid of her ex finding out.

I don't claim to be an expert on either lesbians or the French, so this could be normal relations for either as far as I know. Solange is sympathetic and suggests they talk to the Foreign Language Students' rep at University, who could refer them to a church group for Bible reading, prayers, faith healing, afternoon tea, and pub crawls. I wonder if this is also the French or lesbian way of dealing with a partnership crisis. Pascaline makes reluctantly conducive noises, emerges from the toilet cubicle, and the pair get their phones out and exchange some numbers, then start watching Dutch movie clips on ViewTube. I head upstairs, unable to tell how much pointless information I've just absorbed.

The bar staff and managers are way too excited for my mood, dressed up in tuxedos and slinky Bond Girl dresses, being drilled in teams of six on how to shake a Martini. Cooper is looking very smug as well, like a kid who's found the cookie jar. When I ask why he's so pleased with himself, he confides that he posted a notice on Facebuddy earlier that tonight's Bond theme is not until tomorrow, and tonight is actually R'n'B Pimps & Ho's night. So he's expecting a completely different crowd in the venue to the red carpet turn-out the Zone staff are hoping for. Aha. Industrial sabotage.